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By Thomas Fullmer
I always meant to talk to her say something to her, at least introduce myself to her and
see where it all went. But when it came down to it I was a coward. I could handle a
tough business or sales meeting, but when it came to the woman I longed to be with, I
could do nothing. I would see her walking down the street with a group of friends,
laughing, and tossing her head back as she did. Her long dark auburn hair trailing down
her gently curved back. I wished that I knew what joke they all shared. I would see her in
the grocery store, just a few carts ahead of me as she chatted gaily with the cashier in
such a relaxed, off handed manner. But I never got close enough to say anything, though
I longed to. Never got to talk to her until the day she died, until the day I killed her.
I was tired, and it was dark and raining, the top was up, and my windshield wipers
weren’t working particularly well. It was more smear than clear. My cell phone began to
chime its happy tune and I reached in my suit pocket to retrieve it. I fumbled with it and
it fell onto the seat. I reached for it, and in that instant I took my eyes off the road
momentarily distracted from my driving.
The car, as if on its own volition, or perhaps out of some memory of what it should do at
this point, drifted into the turn lane, in preparation to turning into my condo complex.
When I looked up at the road, I was startled to see in my headlights the beautiful face that
had haunted my wildest fantasies. Only it was filled with shock and terror as she was in
the suicide lane.
The car hit her full force, throwing her to the side. The thud that broke her body will
reverberate forever in my memory. It was a sickening, bone crunching thud, which sent a
chill down my spine. The car skidded on water as it slowly came to a stop and died with
the headlights still on.
I jumped out of my vehicle, and rushed back to where she lay on the edge of the suicide
lane, the turning lane between the two sides of traffic. Was she still alive? I knew her
body had to be broken, how could it not be after a bone shattering impact like that.
Hoping beyond hope, I rushed to her side, careful not to slip on the pavement, and lifted
her head up to gaze into a blood streaked face. It was the most beautiful face I had ever
seen. It dripped of blood, and it tormented me that I had marred such beauty as hers.
But, thank God or the demons, she was still alive. She still breathed. Her eyes were still
open, and she gazed up at me and mouthed the word: “Why?”
Why what? Why had I hit her? Why hadn’t I paid more attention to the road? Why
hadn’t I talked to her when I had the opportunity? Why had God allowed this to happen?
Why what? She didn’t say, all she did was mouth the word again as blood ran out the
corner of her mouth and down her lovely, soft cheek.
“I need help here!” I called out to no avail looking around me. A car sped past and
splashed a puddle of water in my face, drenching me, but no one stopped. I was now
drenched, as was help. “Won’t anyone help me!” Then I remembered the phone in my
car. What had caused the accident could save us, but I had to hurry.
“I’ll get help!” I cried over the thunder of the rain that fell like sheets on us. I couldn’t
just lay her head back down on the cold, wet pavement. I hurriedly took my Armani suit
jacket off, and lay it under her head, gently lowering her head back down. Then I dashed
frantically for my car where the phone remained on the floor where I had dropped it when
I had hit her.
Once in the car, I couldn’t find my phone. I looked everywhere, but no phone. I was
frantic! Where was it? The thought came to me to feel under the seat. I did. I found that
my phone scooted underneath the driver’s seat. Using the lights in the car, I dialed 911,
and then not wanting to leave her for too long, I hurried back out to where she lay
bleeding on the pavement as the phone rang the emergency number.
I could only hope that she would still be alive when I returned to her side. I found her
still conscious, thank God, if there was one. After what seemed like several dozen rings,
and an interminable amount of time, a woman’s voice finally answered my call. “Oh my
God!” I blurted out. “I just hit a woman with my car, and she’s lying her bleeding on the
pavement! I need an ambulance here now, and paramedic!”
“Calm down sir,” said the nasally voice that sounded like an imitation of an old Lilly
Tomlin character. I’d seen once on the TV show, Laugh In. “Can you tell me where you
are?”
“I’m out here in the rain outside my condo complex. Please hurry! I don’t know how
long she will last!” She closed her eyes momentarily, and I cried out, “Oh my dear Lord!
I think I’ve killed her. Send someone NOW!”
“I’m on seventh east and about forty-five-seventy south, in the suicide lane!” I managed
to gain a modicum of composure. “Right outside of Cambridge Condo Complex! Hurry!
I don’t know how long she will last!”
“I will have someone there right away,” said the woman. “Stay on the line, and I will get
you through this. What is your name?”
“Richard,” I said.
It must have had some effect on her, because her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at
me and smiled so serenely that it took my breath away. Her emerald green eyes seemed
to bore right through me asking questions I could not answer. She was like an angel in
my arms, and she was alive.
“Oh my God!” I cried out in joyous wonder. “She’s alive! My beloved stranger, who
haunts my dreams is alive.”
“That is good to hear Mr. Montgomery,” said the nasally voice on the other end of my
droid. “Do not try to move her, someone will be there momentarily.”
I could hear a siren in the background. Up the street I could see the flashing lights
coming towards us. I gazed back down at her lovely, blood streaked face. Her skin was
alabaster and of the smoothest texture. I could not resist reaching down and stroking her
cheek, even as my Armani suit soaked up the blood from her head wound. She gasped as
if trying to say something but couldn’t. Her eyes fluttered as she grasped my hand hard,
as her body convulsed from some unseen paroxysm of pain. I held her hand, and tried to
shield her face from the rain that beat down upon us, to no avail. “Hang on!” I said.
“They’re almost here!”
Then I spilled my guts to her, as she lay there gazing up at me. “I’ve wanted to tell you
for so long how I love you,” I said holding her in my arms, hoping she could hear me
over the approaching ambulance siren. “I’ve been a fool. I’ve seen you in my dreams a
thousand times, and in reality dozens. But I never had the guts to approach you. That is
so strange to say from one who considers himself so suave and debonair. I’ve always
been a lady’s man, I must admit. But with you it was different. I guess I just didn’t
know how to approach you in a way that didn’t seem false or fake, as I’ve done so many
other times with other women. And there have been other women. And so I never
approached you. I wanted to, but it was almost as if I thought I would spoil things, say
the wrong thing. Be the kind of jerk I have always been, so smooth and polished. But
now, now it may all be too late. Now I’ve met you in the worst of all possible
circumstances. Now I’ve nearly killed you, and I don’t know if you can forgive me for
what I have done to you and for what I haven’t done in approaching you. Can you
forgive me? Can you ever love a fool like me? Is there any hope for us?”
I looked up to see where the ambulance was and saw it come over the rise not a half mile
away. She tried to answer me, but it must have been too much for her. One more
paroxysm of pain, one more gasp, one more attempt to try to say something I could not
comprehend, and her body went limp, her eyes closed, and she was gone.
“NO!” I cried. “Don’t go! Not now!” My lament did me no good. Did her no good. She
was gone.
The rest of the night was a blur. The ambulance, the paramedics, the police, the
questions were all a blur…a long nightmarish blur. I didn’t even know her name, and
now she was gone. The woman I had loved from a far, who had filled my sweetest
fantasies was gone. And I had killed her.
After that my life spiraled downward. I couldn’t sleep. When I closed my eyes I saw the
blood streaked face of the most beautiful woman in the world. As well as the astonished
terror filled expression I’d first seen on her face when my BMW smashed into her. I sold
the car of course. How could I keep it? It reminded me too much of her and how I had
killed her. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t concentrate on work. It was a Friday night when I
killed her, and the weekend was pure hell. I called in sick at work on Monday, then on
Tuesday, and on Wednesday, which as I found out was the day of her funeral. I found
out her name, Pennie Johnson, “Our Million Dollar Pennie” is what the obituary called
her. It said that she was: “Kind, giving, compassionate, and loving to all who knew her.
She will be sorely missed.” I had killed a saint.
I was cleared of all wrong doing by the police. It was ruled a freak accident with no
alcohol involved since I’d been sober for five years. I considered drowning my sorrows
with a pitcher of tequila sunrise, but thought better of it. Instead, I decided to go to the
funeral of the woman I had loved and killed to tell her friends, family, and loved ones
how sorry I was for their loss and mine. Would they try to hurt me? Would they want
me dead for taking this angelic woman out of their lives? I didn’t know, but I knew I
needed to go and face them all or I would never know a moment’s peace.
I dressed in the only black suit I owned and I went to the funeral. I stood in line with
everyone else. When I came to her mother I told her who I was. Horror filled her eyes as
I told her I was the one who had killed Pennie. I told her how sorry I was for what I had
done. How I wished I could change it all. How I wished that it had been me that had
died that night. How I wished I could bring her back. Then I said, “There is something
else I must tell you.”
“What?” said her mother grief stricken and almost unable to contain her anguish. “What
more could you possibly say or do?”
“Funny,” said her mother, “She never mentioned she had a man in her life. She was
always so busy with taking care of other’s needs to see to her own.”
“She didn’t know I loved her,” I said. “She didn’t even know that I existed.”
“I mean the night I killed her was the first night we’d ever met,” I said. “The night that I
will regret the rest of my life. The night I lost my one chance at happiness. Can you
forgive me for what I have taken from you? Can you forgive me for killing your
daughter? I mean, I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t work. Life is a burden. I need to know
if you can forgive me?”
She looked at me a long moment as she considered this. “Pennie was the most
compassionate person I know,” said her mother. “As hard as it is for me to do it and say
it, I think that she would want me to forgive you. I think she would forgive you herself.
But it is so hard to lose a child. A parent should never have to bury a child, especially
one as good and pure as was my million dollar Pennie. You have to understand, it is so
very hard.” She thought a moment longer and then said, “ Yes, I can forgive you. The
only question you must ask yourself mister…I’m sorry what was your name.”
“Okay Richard, I’m Grace, Grace Johnson,” she said extending a hand, which I took and
shook. “The only question Richard that you must ask yourself is…can you forgive
yourself? Because knowing Pennie as her mother, she would want you to. She was
always so compassionate to others. So very giving, why she’d give to beggars in the
street, little children, visit widows. All that kind of thing. So compassionate and so
lovely, such a tragdy."
”Why?”
“It’s how she was raised,” said Grace as if that should be very evident. “But there is
something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Since she’d returned from Afghanistan she was even more giving, especially to children.
That’s when she decided she wanted to become a pediatrics nurse. She had just learned
she was accepted into the program when you … or she… well you know what I mean.”
“She was a core man for the Army, part of a medical evac team.”
Of course, what else would this saint of a woman do but save others. I had been in
Desert Storm as a marine and I knew the siren call of our counties’ military. I didn’t say
anything I just gazed down at Mrs. Johnson, Grace, with a wide pear shaped body, and
graying auburn hair, as if appraising her. She shifted nervously and I was about to move
on, get the hell out of there as a matter of fact. Instead, I made the biggest mistake I
could that that I would come to regret but which I would also appreciate when it opened
up a path to redemption.
"Is there anything I can do for your family? Anything at all? It was a harmless enough
question, or so I thought at the time. Her response startled me, but it changed my life
forever.
She looked like she was about to say, "Haven't you done enough." Then her expression
changed and she said, "There's a little eight year old girl in the oncology ward of St.
Jude's Children's Hospital named Amanda Blake. Pennie goes there every Wednesday at
four PM and reads to her and talks to her for an hour or so. We haven't had time to go
tell her or to contact the hospital to tell them my daughter won't be there today, or ever
again." She fell deftly silent.
Never before had I been so terrified of facing an eight year old little girl as I was at that
moment. But I surprised myself when the next words came out of my mouth, "Do you
want me to contact the hospital and let them know Pennie won't be there?"
"We'd see her ourselves," continued Grace, "but with the funeral today and all." It was a
Wednesday morning. "And Pennie was so close to Amanda. Pennie loved little Amanda
so. We couldn't bear..."
I didn't let her finish before the next mistake came out of my mouth unedited. It came out
and shocked me" Do you want me to go to the Hospital and tell little Amanda myself?"
The relief in her eyes told the whole story: "Would you. It would mean the world to us
and her."
How could I say no. I had made the suggestion. Hell I had killed the lady's daughter. So
all I cold do was to nod my head and say with quiet resolve, "I'll do it."
"Thank you Mr. Montgomery," she said. "It means so much to all of us, and in the end it
will be best for Amanda."
What I had just promised to do hit me like a ton of bricks. And I staggered away as if I
were a prize fighter who had just been hit by a uppercut to the jaw. I didn't remain for
the funeral, couldn't bear to. I couldn't even go to the casket and see Pennie's broken
body resting in eternal sleep one last time. I had already held her dead body in my arms.
It would have only torn me up to see here there. The guilt was too great, and what I was
going to say to this little eight year old girl weighed heavy on my mind.
I wandered out of the church where the viewing was being held and wandered the streets
of the city looking for some kind of solace and peace and knowing I would never be able
to find it, not now, not anymore. I had always been a selfish sort. I had always worked
hard for what I had obtained in life, wealth and material possessions, the best money
could buy. I had always looked down at others who didn’t have as much or as good of
things as I did, and I had always admired those who had more. But now I viewed my
selfishness as despicable, and myself as the lowest of men. My pride had become my
depravation..
As I wandered the streets lost in though, I wished I could join the beautiful Pennie I had
killed in her coffin, and go to the paradise that everyone seemed to believe she had gone.
I didn’t believe in such fairytales as purgatory or paradise. I didn’t know what happened
to life energy when it left a person’s body. Perhaps it went to a Paradise, I doubted it, but
it made for a good story for children. Perhaps it went into a cosmic soup and was
recycled into something on the other end, a kind of reincarnation. Perhaps it dissipated
into the universe and was lost. I had always ascribed to the last of the three. But it was
so depressed to think of Pennie’s beautiful life energy being lost forever. It was even
more depressing to think I’d never see her again.
I had left the funeral and did not go to the interment of Pennie’s dead body in its ebony
casket. I could not bear to see the beautiful Pennie lowered into a lonely grave. Alone in
the depths of my sorrow, I wandered the streets of the city wondering what I would say to
this eight year old little girl to tell her the woman she loved and had befriended her had
been killed. I had killed her, a veritable saint of a woman. What does one do when the
mental anguish becomes unbearable? How can you rid yourself of the awful burden? I
didn’t know. But I knew I had to go to St. Jude's and face this little eight year old girl,
and that terrified me to death.
As I wandered the streets of the downtown district in the suit I had worn to the funeral, I
must have stuck out like a sore thumb, especially in the area I wandered in. It had grown
dark and the only ones who would be out this time of night were partiers, the homeless,
and derelicts of society.
I wandered long enough that it became late afternoon, but found myself standing in front
of St Jude’s Children's Hospital as if drawn there by an unseen force that had guided me
there. I didn't even know I knew where it was. I checked my watch and found it to be
almost four PM, and little Amanda Blake was waiting for Pennie to come to be with her.
Trembling slightly, I gulped and entered the hospital.
I entered St. Jude's at then to four, and inquired about Amanda Blake at ten-to-four.
I was directed by the front desk to the third floor, to room three-sixteen. Before I had a
chance to consider what I was doing, I found myself wandering the halls of the oncology
department looking for the room I had been given, Amanda Blake's room. I didn't enter,
but hesitated outside.
Should I enter? Should I run away? What of my promise to the dear mother to fill in for
the only woman I had ever loved?
I looked around not certain what to do. And for a long moment I took in the heart
wrenching scene that surrounded me. Children with shaved heads and hospital gowns,
some with the first sign of stubble growing back, lay in beds with tubes running out of
their bodies', or rode in wheel chairs, and a few even walked some with the help of
others, some by themselves. Monitors beeped, and lights flashed, and occasionally a
voice would come over the intercom and say things I could not understand.
I realized that not only were there children walking up and down the halls, or
maneuvering wheel chairs, but adults went with them to see to their comfort and needs. I
thought that if ever I had seen angels, these adults who cared for these cancer patients
were they. An old woman slowly walked by pushing a wheel chair with a little boy
slumped over to one side. A young woman, no more than eighteen, walked a long side a
little girl, holding her hand in one of her own and pulling some hospital monitor along
behind her. It was such a poignant scene, the angels as innocent children and the angels
of earth who assisted them.
But I was no angel, in fact I had killed the one who came here every Wednesday
afternoon to administer to the little girl who lay just behind the partially opened door. I
was a demon who had killed Pennie the angel in Amanda Blake's life. That realization
almost sent me running down the hallway to the elevator and out of the hospital for good.
But I didn't run. I hesitated out side the door for a moment. I couldn't see Amanda and I
was pretty certain she couldn't see me. I felt guilty just standing there. I wondered what
I should or would do, as doctors, nurses, lab rats, patients, and visitors passed me by as if
I wasn't even there. Part of me wished I wasn't there, the rest of me was glad I was. The
rest of me knew I had to be there to fill my mission, and open that door and go inside and
tell that precious, little girl why the woman she waited on as her friend to arrive wasn't
ever coming to see her anymore.
I hesitated there at the door, as doctors, nurses, parents, visitors, and patients passed me
by as if I weren't even there. Part of me wished that I wasn't there, the rest of me know I
had to be. I had to go in there, in that room and tell this precious little girl why her own
angel wasn't coming to see her any more, which only made me want to leave all the more.
"Pennie, what should I do?' It was almost like a prayer, but not quite, as I knew she was
no god, angel yes, god no. Was there even a god who would allow such things like this
to happen? Of course I received no answer, but something did happen that would change
the course of my life forever.
A small, quiet, sweet, little voice called out "Pennie are you there?"
I had been found out. I was caught in the act, with no choice but to enter. So I did.
When I entered the room I was stunned by what I saw, just as the little girl was stunned
by what she saw, her mouth agape told me as much. I realized my own mouth was open
too. Some strange man stood there before her and not her beloved Pennie. She looked so
small in that hospital bed, more like a four-year-old little girl, and not an eight-year-old.
An IV was in her right arm, and other monitors were attached to her cancer ridden body.
We gazed at each other for the longest time it seemed, both our mouths wide open with
surprise. I don't know what she thought, but I thought she had the most cherubic face I'd
ever seen, sweet, pure and innocent, and green eyes full of questions, but no fear, just full
of warmth and curiosity.
"Where's my Pennie? It's after four o’clock and she’s supposed to read to me.”
I wanted to run over and give her tiny form the biggest hug it would be all right, take
away her pain, give her a chance to heal from the cancer and the news I was about to give
her. It was a terrible thing I came to give this sweet, angelical, little girl who had
suffered so much at a young age. I suddenly wished it was I who had died that night in
the suicide lane, instead of Pennie.
“She’s not coming,” then I added, “her parents sent me to tell you this.”
“What do you mean?” she was suddenly alarmed and concerned about her friend. “Is she
okay? Is she all right? When will she be able to come see me again?”
I wanted to break down and cry and beg her forgiveness for the ignominious deed I had
done in killing her earth angel.
“Why?” The alarm was evident in her eyes as they darted questioningly back and forth,
and then landed on me. “Doesn’t she love me anymore?”
“She loves you very much.” I had to stifle a sob of my own as I raised the back of my
hand to my mouth.
“Then why won’t she come? Why not? Why can’t she? What happened?” She was as
incessant as any eight-year-old would be under these circumstances.
“I killed her!”
“What?”
I couldn’t watch her cry and sob and hurt the way no little eight-year-old cherubim ever
should. I turned on my heels and bolted out the door, and down the hall. I left her to deal
with her grief alone.
I felt like a son-of-a-bitch to do it, but I couldn’t bear it any longer. Besides I had my
own tears and sobs and pain to deal with, as guilt wrenched my gut way down deep inside
my very soul, which I was certain was going to hell.
The next thing I remembered, I found myself on the edge of a fountain outside St. Jude’s.
My head was in my hands. I sobbed my guts out, as my whole being shook with torment,
pain, and guilt. Doctors, nurses, visitors, even patients passed me by, but didn’t even
acknowledge my existence. I was alone in my grief, as I tried to collect my emotions and
thoughts after what must have been an hour or more.
As I sat there outside of St Jude's, a man approached pushing a shopping cart full of what
must have been his meager life’s belongings and I thought, “Here we go again.”
But I soon realized I was wrong when he said, “Are you okay mister.”
I was touched by his sincerity and so I unburdened my soul to him and told him the story
of Pennie, and how I had loved her from a far and then only met her the night I killed her.
It seems strange to me now that I opened up my heart to such a completely stranger as if
he were a trusted friend or therapist, but I couldn’t help myself. All the anguish and
misery I had held inside just came pouring out. And he was patient and kind enough,
though grimy and unkempt, to listen.
“So you never told her or your feelings for her?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “She was so beautiful and happy, and most of the relationships I
get into end badly with the woman hating me, so I guess I was afraid and intimidated by
the prospect of finding someone I might actually care about.”
“And now you feel the opportunity to know the one woman you can truly love is gone.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“So why did you go to her funeral if you weren’t going to view her dead body?”
“I don’t know. I guess I sought some kind of healing or closure to the whole affair. I
guess I hoped by confessing my misdeed to her family, her mother in fact, I would
release myself from the depression and darkness I feel mired in.”
“Did it help?”
“Not really. They wanted me to go talk to the little girl this woman knew here at St.
Jude's.
"Yes, but it’s made me feel even worse than I already did.” He just nodded his head as if
in understanding. “And what makes it worse is I can’t buy into the belief in some
paradise where she has gone to dwell with God and the angels.”
“Why not?”
“Because it has always seemed like a big fairytale to me that people tell themselves and
each other to give them hope in something I can’t believe exists. They do it to comfort
themselves and give themselves hope that there is some meaning to our existence on this
planet.”
“What makes you think there is not some meaning to our existence?”
“It goes against the grain of my being,” I said gesturing with my hands. “I mean, I’ve
always believed that we were here to enjoy the moment as we are in it. To grasp the most
we can get, even if we have to screw someone else over to get it. I’ve spent my whole
life in the pursuit of my own comfort and aggrandizement. I work hard, and I work
smart, and I believe I deserve the best life has to offer, even if I have to step on some
poor schlep to get it.”
“You mean some poor schlep like me?” A deep frown and look of disappointment
furrowed his brow.
“You know, I hate to admit it, but yes,” I felt very awkward and sheepish. “I know it
sounds horrible, and it makes me feel guilty as hell, but yes, if I had to I would screw you
over and take advantage of you. I’ve done it to both family and friends, and made a ton
of money at it. But it has left me empty inside. And I can’t help but wonder what the
meaning of it all is, or if there is a meaning. And I guess it’s just easier to think there is
no meaning, than to believe that I’ve been wrong all along.”
“That is a sad story,” he said when I was through. “What makes it sadder is that you just
seem to accept your situation without a thought of the consequences or what you might
do about it. You’re hell, a kind of bondage to your way of thinking and behaving, and
don’t realize it. You’re resigned to being who you have been. And that is the saddest
thing of all.”
“Yeah, so what if I am,” I became defensive for the first time in our conversation. He
used the kind of language that I would expect of an educated, sophisticated person, and
not some poor bum off the street.
“What are you,” and he pointed an accusing finger at me, “going to do about it?”
Up to that point I thought there was nothing I could do about it. She was gone, I had
killed her, and that was that. Besides I was who I was and up to the moment that I had
killed the beautiful angel, Pennie Johnson. Up to that point I had liked my life. I was a
selfish pig, but it had gotten me all I had wanted and more, except now I realized for the
first time just how little that all was.
“Yes,” I answered.
“She cared about others and sounds to me like she would give the coat off her back to
someone,” he said.
I hadn’t thought about it like that but now I realized that she would. “Yes,” I said. It was
then that I felt the first chill I had felt since coming out of the hospital with Amanda
Blake. It was spring, and the air was a bit nippy. I had been so caught up in my misery
that I hadn’t noticed the drop in temperature when the sun had gone down.
“You took one of God’s special daughters from off the earth,” he said. “You deprived
the world of one of its true Samaritans.”
“Yes,” I said not certain where he was going with this. “Yes I did. And now I’m
miserable and alone, and I’ll never know what it was like to know Pennie Johnson,
because she’s six feet under or soon will be.”
Now I was completely lost, she was dead. How was I going to change that? “How do I
do that?” I asked.
“How? Here I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to tell me how.” I handed him a hundred
dollar bill out of my wallet.
“I don’t want your money!” He was disdainful. “You can’t fix every problem in the
world with money Richard.”
I looked at him quizzically, and did not realize until later that I had never told him my
name. “Then how?”
“With you!” He thrust an accusing finger into my face, and I winced. “You just can’t
throw money at it to fix the problem. Governments do that all the time and tain’t solved
nothing yet.”
“Then what?”
With that he walked off leaving me to do just that. Suddenly it dawned on me. “Wait!
How do you know my name?”
But he had disappeared. It was as if he’d never been there in the first place.
I got up and hurried down the sidewalk where he had gone passing doctors and nurses
dressed in their medical uniforms. But when I made it around the corner of the street, he
had disappeared. I saw nothing.
“Where did he go?” I asked to no one, because there was no one there. He had just
disappeared.
A man and woman out for a late night visit to some unknown patient walked past me
hand in hand and I said, “Did you see an old man pushing a cart by here?”
“I saw nothing of the sort,” said the man, and hurried on probably worried that I was a
thug of some sort and might try to rob him.
“He was just here a minute ago,” I said following them. “Surely you must have seen
where he went.”
“I would have remembered that,” said the man, “But we passed no such person and have
seen no one else outside the hospital except you. Now if you don’t mind…scram!”
He was very rude about it, but all I could say was: “Thanks, thanks anyway man.”
Where had the old man gone? I never found out. It was as if he had disappeared into
thin air. But I had learned a valuable lesson. I could keep Pennie alive in my heart by
being the kind of person she was, by being a selfless man. I didn’t know what all that
entailed, but I was committed to make it work and fill the hole I had left in the world
when I had killed Pennie Johnson. It was going to be a big challenge I realized. I would
make a lot of mistakes. But I was going to do it. I was going to give to the world what
Pennie would have if she were still here. And I knew where to start.
In a cemetery miles away an ebony casket was lowered to its resting place as a bag pipes
played “Amazing Grace” on a lonely knoll nearby.
On the third floor of St. Jude’s a broken-hearted cancer ridden little girl stained her
pillow with her tears.